Nestled high above Cornell University’s campus, over 30 red-tailed hawk chicks have hatched, fed and taken flight.
They’re all part of one feathered family, raised by their mother, a hawk named Big Red.
Big Red and her brood have been the stars of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s bird cam since 2012.
“They see what's happening in the nest all the way from when that egg is laid to when it's hatching,” said Dr. Miyoko Chu, the communications director for the lab.
Chu said millions of people watch these birds grow up. In the summer the baby birds start to fledge, flying out of their nest.
It’s a period of life that’s surprisingly dangerous for the young birds. Twelve of Big Red’s fledglings have been severely injured or killed simply because they collided with windows while flying.
The latest collision happened less than two weeks ago, killing a fledgling.
North America has lost over a quarter of its birds since 1970, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The third biggest reason for that, behind habitat loss and predation by domestic cats, is collisions with windows.
“When you add up all of these strikes across the amount of glass in our environments, it's a tremendous number of birds that are hitting windows,” Chu said.
That’s because birds just don't see glass the same way humans do, she added.
“They'll either see a reflection of sky and trees and try to fly right through it at full speed, or they might see the transparency and just think that they can go through, but they don't realize it's a solid surface,” she explained.
It’s a big problem, but experts say there’s actually a pretty straightforward solution.
'We have the answers'
Chu’s desk has a clear view of the woods outside, and importantly to an ornithologist, to the birds that live there.
As she looks out her window, she can see the wildlife surrounding the lab.
“I've seen pileated woodpeckers stop by,” she said, looking out at the thick trees outside. “I see a robin hopping in the tree right now.”
The windows are a defining feature of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology. But at one time, they were actually fairly dangerous to birds.
“I was sitting here in my office, occasionally a bird would hit the window,” she said.
The building had been designed with bird safety in mind. But because scientists knew less about how birds see glass when the building was constructed, birds were still striking the windows.
But the lab was able to reach a solution.
When you look out Chu’s window, now you still see the birds and trees alongside thin cords running up and down the window.
They look like guitar strings stretched a few inches from the glass.
It’s called an Acopian BirdSaver. It signals to birds that they’re headed towards a solid surface and not more sky.
“One of the most beautiful things about this is that the solutions are known and they're simple and they're immediate,” Chu said.
Dr. Christine Sheppard, the senior director of the American Bird Conservancy’s glass collision program, said windows just need to have some sort of visual that signals to birds that what they’re flying towards is glass and not more sky.
“Pretty much any kind of building can be made bird friendly.”
Sheppard said there are easy ways for people who are concerned about bird strikes to make windows safer at home.
She suggested breaking up the reflection of a window using stick-on decals, post-it notes or getting creative with tempera paints.
“You could, for example, make a game of it with your kids and paint the window for the Fourth of July with stars and stripes,” Sheppard said. “You could have turkeys for Thanksgiving.”
She said bird strikes are upsetting and that most people want to prevent them.
“We have the answers. We know the solutions. People just aren't aware that they're out there.”
'Immediate impact'
Sheppard said it's also helpful to have bird safety in mind during the design process, a standard that might be codified into law by the city of Ithaca’s common council.
Right now, the Ithaca Common Council is considering legislation that would require new buildings to adhere to bird friendly standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council.
It requires buildings to be designed with bird strike prevention in mind. That could mean using special glass that birds can see in construction or adding subtle designs to windows.
Aislyn Berg is co-leader of Cornell University’s Bird Friendly Campus Initiative. She helped create the draft memo for Ithaca’s proposed ordinance.
“It really creates a sense of joy for people, even if they know nothing about birds or about wildlife in general,” she said.
There are threats to birds, Berg said, that are much more complicated to solve, like human-caused climate change.
But these protections are one of the rare instances with a simple fix.
“Bird collisions are something that every single person can work on and have an immediate impact on.”
The Ithaca Common Council has discussed the measure but it hasn’t officially scheduled it for a vote.